Rewarding Experience Points (WFRP)
For a normal sitting of WarHammer (1e) I would usually award under 100XP. XP in a normal sitting would come from battle and from roleplaying. When dealing out battle XP, I try to figure out in my head how many of these specific creatures it should take for a character to advance one advance (100XP). Since this is pretty subjective, it can and does vary from character to character and sitting to sitting. Also, if I think you need to fight 5 lizardmen to advance, making each one 20 XP, but someone helps you kill a lizardman, then you have to share that 20 and each character would get 10 (or split in some other way to indicate who did most of the killing). It also allows for other subjective, judicious XP allotments if the character that helped you kill the lizardman would only need to kill 2 to earn 100XP. Maybe then the helper earns 20 for helping and the original character only earns 15. Above all, I try to be fair.
Roleplaying XP is probably between 10-50, but you have to be doing a lot of excellent roleplaying to earn 50XP. Most of the time I deal out 20-30 roleplaying XP. I also award some bonuses (5XP) for using skills, excluding skills that are always “on,” such as Night Vision. This normal sitting amount usually ends up fewer than 100, as I mentioned originally. This creates an average of one advance every-other sitting, or one per sitting depending on how many went unused after the last advance.
That’s a normal sitting. In addition, every few sittings, a minor or major goal is reached, which adds 50-100 XP on top of the normal amount earned. Also, if there happens to be a lot of battle, characters could earn more than average from fighting.
The only way I really incentivize is to break the XP allotments down into their various components so the players can see what they did to earn XP. That way they can do more of it next time if they are interested in earning more XP next time. A lot of my players actually don’t care about maximizing XP and how long it takes them to advance. The exception to this might be players trying to run a first edition apprentice/wizard or initiate/cleric.
Roleplaying XP is probably between 10-50, but you have to be doing a lot of excellent roleplaying to earn 50XP. Most of the time I deal out 20-30 roleplaying XP. I also award some bonuses (5XP) for using skills, excluding skills that are always “on,” such as Night Vision. This normal sitting amount usually ends up fewer than 100, as I mentioned originally. This creates an average of one advance every-other sitting, or one per sitting depending on how many went unused after the last advance.
That’s a normal sitting. In addition, every few sittings, a minor or major goal is reached, which adds 50-100 XP on top of the normal amount earned. Also, if there happens to be a lot of battle, characters could earn more than average from fighting.
Feel free to share your thoughts and strategies!